“…When disability issues are addressed, when disability experiences are described, they areframed from the perspective of nondisabled people. Accounts of disability are told as the story ofwhat nondisabled people have done for or to people with various kinds of disabilities. It is astory of treatment or derelictions, benefactions or neglect. As a result, disabled people arehidden or depicted as passive and inert.” “Introduction,” Longmore, Why I Burned My Book (7)

The Americans with Disabilities Act turned 28 this year, and yet people with disabilities are stillfighting for basic respect and protections that able-bodied citizens take for granted. From thestraw ban to voting rights access, from inspiration porn to erasure, social attitudes towarddisabled people are reflected in the way disability is invoked in or omitted from public rhetoricand policy, in the ways they are written and spoken about. For this assignment, you will select anarticle about some issue of life with disability, or in which disabled people figure prominently,and complete a rhetorical analysis of the text.

You will determine the writer’s chosen audience and purpose, assess the uses and limits of thetext, identify the rhetorical appeals being used, and apply key concepts from Longmore andJarman et al, such as the social model vs the medical model of disability, to evaluate the presenceand effect of ableist rhetoric in the article or essay you’ve selected.

Your goal is to introduce the topic to your reader, cite your source appropriately, close-read andanalyze the language, and develop an interpretive claim that helps your reader understand thisarticle in a new way.

Readings• Longmore, “Disability Watch” Why I Burned My Book• Carroll, “Backpacks vs Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis”• Jarman et al “Introduction” Barriers and Belonging• Student-selected article or essay for analysis

I will upload one of the reading text that you will need here, too